


128. hymns

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [164]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 20:17:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8814823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: “I couldn’t go to church with sestra Alison," Helena says. "People-would-talk.” She fiddles with her fingers some more. “I don’t know if I can pray. Anyways.”





	

It’s difficult to find Helena on Sundays. Sarah didn’t know this was true until she goes to look for Helena on a Sunday and realized that she couldn’t be found. The Hendrixes’ house was empty, but that was to be expected; once Sarah had tried to call Alison while Alison was at church and had gotten a hissed lecture with fifteen PG synonyms for _shit_. Helena, though. She didn’t realize.

It takes a lot of searching to find Helena somehow _on the roof_ , this time around, perched precariously over one of the pointier bits of it like the world’s blondest gargoyle. She looks contemplative. Or hungry. Sarah can’t really tell.

“Oi, meathead,” she says, leaning out the window. “You’re gonna fall and break your neck.”

“I have very good balance,” Helena says peacefully. “I do not fall.”

Sarah frowns at her. Helena blinks placidly back. Sarah sighs, and pulls herself up onto the roof.

“There’re chairs inside, y’know,” she says easily, as Helena scoots over to make room. She almost wants to say _I did this when I was a kid_ but that seems like sort of a rock to drop in these apparently-still waters so she doesn’t say it.

“I know,” Helena says.

“Alright,” Sarah says, and looks at the view. She lets time unspool between her hands for a beat or two before Helena sighs, shifts on the roof, and says: “I went to church after Aryanna exp—” she looks down at her fingers, fiddles with them. “After. That. I went and prayed. That was the only time. Once I left the convent.”

“Oh yeah?” Sarah says, feeling the sudden lurching shift of vertigo she thought she’d feel the second she’d reached the roof. This is vertigo of a different kind, though; _I’m not prepared for this conversation at all_.

“Yes,” Helena says. “I couldn’t go to church with _sestra_ Alison. People-would-talk.” She fiddles with her fingers some more. “I don’t know if I can pray. Anyways.”

“Not sure I’m the right person to talk to about this, meathead,” Sarah says awkwardly. “Maybe try Alison? She just went through some—” she waves her hand through the empty space “crisis of faith, ‘pparently, that’s what Fe says. You can ask her.”

“I know,” Helena says, voice quiet. Sarah can hear the unspoken _but I wanted to ask you_ ringing in the air like, well. Church bells. She sighs, leans her hands against the roof and shifts some of her weight onto them.

“Can’t hurt to try it,” she says. “If you can’t, you can’t, yeah?”

“I,” Helena says, and she looks at Sarah, and then she looks at her hands, and then she looks into the distance, and then she looks at her hands, and then she closes her eyes. “If the God that listened to me then is the same God that listens to me now, what does that mean? What do I do?”

_Uh_ , says Sarah’s brain. She reaches out a hand and claps it on Helena’s shoulder; it’s bony underneath her hand. She rubs her hand back and forth over it and Helena lets out a long, shuddery sigh.

“You’ll figure it out,” Sarah says.

“It feels like falling,” Helena says. “It feels like I have been falling for a very long time, and now I don’t know how to be anything but falling.”

“Maybe get off the roof, then,” Sarah says, smile curling at the corner of her mouth. Helena looks up and smiles back at her, a little bit. Her eyes are still sad. Sarah wishes she wasn’t such a useless piece of shit, but when can you do. Not for the first time she wishes she could just reach into her mouth and pull out the exact right string of words – to talk Helena away from the gun, usually, but in this instance just to make her feel okay. For once in Helena’s terrible, shitty life, Sarah wants her to feel okay.

“I want to stay,” Helena says. “For a little while. I promise I will come in safe. No splats.”

“If there’s any splats, I’m gonna be pissed,” Sarah says, overly-serious. That makes Helena _actually_ smile, pleased. Sarah ruffles her hair a little bit and clambers back in the window.

“Yell when you’re coming back in,” she says, “we can go to McDonald’s, don’t tell S,” and outside she hears a pleased sound from Helena. She hopes that it’ll be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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